The Windmill Hut #4: The Legend of Piano

This week’s Windmill Hut is an in depth review of a YouTube gem known as thomandy. His channel is almost completely dedicated to cover songs on the piano, and a great deal of them are from the Zelda series. At the awesome quality of his performances, I find it astounding that most of his videos don’t have that many views. I believe he deserves to sit among the YouTube Zelda cover artist greats. Jump in to see why.

Before anything, listen to a couple of his cover songs. I’ve selected two of my favorites to show you, but you can find a plenty others on his YouTube channel:

He has over 200 videos on his channel, most of which are Zelda piano covers. I had to pick a third:

To start off, I am obsessed at how far thomandy has spread himself out with his videos. From the looks of when they are submitted, he picks a game and commits to covering as many songs from it as he can. Of course, his newer videos are mostly from Skyward Sword, but he has a whole list of Ocarina of Time 3D songs in a row. He has Twilight Princess covers, Wind Wakercovers, Spirit Trackscovers—name a mainstream Zelda game, and thomandy most likely has a cover from it. I appreciate his Zelda musicianship because of his versatility between the different styles each game presents.

As for his actual piano skills, I admit he is not the most impressive. He generally does not do a bunch of the crazy piano playing as some covers boast. That being said, thomandy works well with his slower, more melodic videos. I chose to feature his “Skyloft Theme” video to show this. If you look at the actual “Skyloft Theme” from Skyward Sword, you’ll see the difference in tempo between the two. As a piano player myself, I am a firm believer that any song can be slowed down to express a more sad, peaceful, sometimes nostalgic emotion; thomandy did this perfectly. This cover sounds like it would be played during the end credits of the game while a overhead camera zooms around the various places of Skyloft. Can you picture it as well?

Stylitically, his videos are fantastic. Each video has its own color scheme, as well as some sort of video relating to the song. I found his “Ghirahim Theme” video especially appealing aesthetically. With the music in the background, the video playing—I felt as though I was actually experiencing a Ghirahim encounter. If you were to take out the video showing the piano and insert Ghirahim’s voice, I do not think I could tell it was a cover. Compare it to the original. Well, if the original did not have all the different instruments going on and kept to the piano, they would be identical.

Furthermore, his Ocarina of Time 3D videos are on a 3DS. Although his “Shiek’s Theme” video posted above does not do this, some of his videos scroll between the two screens of the 3DS to show the piano playing and the game footage. So simple of an idea, but I have never seen it done before on a cover video. He does the scrolling in his “Kakariko Village Theme” cover, as well as a few others on his channel.

Overall, I regard thomandy as one of the best Zelda cover artists on YouTube. He is self taught, has too many cover videos to count, and is open to suggestions for future covers. His covers are a joy to listen to, and he definitely earned my subscription. Make sure to check out his channel for his other cover videos. These few are only the tip of the iceberg!

What do you think of thomandy’s piano covers? Do they stack up against the rest of the covers on YouTube? Comment and let us know!